By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBA featherweight champion Freddie Norwood (42-3-1, 23 KOs) was stopped in the 7th round of a scheduled 8-round bout by Johnnie Edwards (14-2-1, 8 KOs) at The Field House, in Camp Lejuene, North Carolina. Norwood, 38, was knocked down in the 3rd and 7th rounds. After the second knockdown in the 7th, coming after Edwards connected with a good left hook to the head, Norwood fell face first to the canvas. He didn’t stir for several seconds, then suddenly he started to get to his feet but feel back down to the canvas, at which point the referee Dave Frye stopped the fight at 2:57 of the 7th round.
This was a rematch of the previous fight between Edwards and Norwood, fought on September 16, 2007, which resulted in Norwood being disqualified in the 6th round for low blows. Before that, Norwood had fought only four times since coming off a six year lay off from boxing. It would seem that by choosing Edwards, a good but not great fighter, Norwood had stepped a little too fast and too far when he needed to be taking incremental steps. In between that time since their last fight last year, Edwards had been blown out in a 1st round TKO by up and coming contender Yuriorkis Gamboa in February 2008. Like Norwood, Edwards had gone beyond his limit and was quickly taken out by the Cuban superstar.
In rounds one and two, Norwood looked nothing short of superb, as he used his straight left hand to pound Edwards. For his part, Edwards moved around the ring constantly, circling and periodically throwing jabs. At least in terms of foot speed, Edwards was a lot faster and more active than Norwood. The problem for Edwards, however, is that his offensive skills were much more limited than Norwood, hence he wasn’t able to do much other than jab and clinch often.
Norwood almost dropped Edwards with a combination in the second, which sent Edwards flying backwards, barely staying up. Norwood was also using a lot of rough tactics during this time, like hitting Edwards when he was bent over after wrestling him into that position, hitting him on the back and roughing him up in close. It wasn’t really needed, for Norwood was already dominating the fight as it was and it only served to spoil his excellence, while at the same time draining his strength.
In the 3rd round, Edwards knocked Norwood down after first pushing him out of position and then tagging him with a left hook while he was attempting to regain his balance. Obviously it was missed by the referee, who shouldn’t have scored it a knockdown because of the hard shove that Edwards gave to Norwood just before throwing the punch. I could see how it would be effective if fighters were allowed to do this, but then it would likely turn the fight into something like football, not boxing. Without the bogus knockdown, however, Edwards still appeared to win the round because Norwood did little in the round. Norwood’s left eye began to bleed in this round, likely from one of Edward’s left hooks.
In rounds four though six, Norwood retook control of the fight, landing big shots against the constantly moving Edwards. In fact, the bigger the shots that Norwood would land, the more that Edwards would move around the ring. It wasn’t even close in these rounds, as Edwards was essentially giving the fight away by running constantly and throwing few punches. During this time, he looked much like the same fighter that was blown out by Gamboa in their February bout. Edwards missed a lot of punches in the 6th round, as he seemed to notice that Norwood had suddenly began to look very faded.
Unfortunately, Edwards’s aim was terrible, which allowed Norwood to land most of the shots by default. Don’t get me wrong, Norwood was his for the taking in the 6th, because he looked like a stiff breeze would knock him over, but Edwards couldn’t hit the side of a barn with his wild shots. An indication of how tired Norwood came at the end of the 6th round when the referee pushed both fighters apart following one of their many clinches in the round, and the exhausted looking Norwood tumbled on the canvas back first. It looked bad, and it would have been comical if not for the way he suddenly had become exhausted in the round.
Edwards continued to waste his time with the useless side to side movement in the 7th round, showing that he had no real understanding of what was going on in the fight. If he had been looking at Norwood, as I was, he would have seen that the guy had nothing left, that anything thrown his way would give him major trouble. Finally, Edwards took a second time out from his usual running and threw a half-hearted left hook to the body, which did nothing upon impact because of the little power that Edwards had put into it, but then he followed it with a decent (not great) left hook to the head and dropped Norwood to the canvas face first. Norwood attempted to get to his feet, but collapsed immediately. The referee then stepped in and stopped the fight.